By Natasha Longo

As one of the few nations in the world with a GMO-free platform, Russia does not allow any cultivation of GMOs for commercial purposes. Their regulatory agencies recently suspended the import and use of an American GM corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage. The Russian Prime Minister has now ordered the same agencies to consider a possible ban on all GMO imports into Russia.

The Russian Federal Environmental Assessment Commission has not adopted any commercialized GM varieties for agricultural use.

The recent decision by the Russians to suspend authorisation for American GM corn threatens to trigger a transatlantic commercial and diplomatic row.

A growing body of scientific research – done mostly in Europe, Russia, and other countries – showing that diets containing engineered corn or soya cause serious health problems in laboratory mice and rats.

Experts at the University of Caen conducted an experiment running for the full lives of rats – two years.

The findings, which were peer reviewed by independent experts before being published in a respected scientific journal, found raised levels of breast cancer, liver and kidney damage.

Russian Prime Minister Announces Possible Ban On All Imports

Russia’s consumer rights watchdog and Health Ministry, Rospotrebnadzor, announced one year ago that it had suspended the import and use of the Monsanto GM corn.

Now, the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered the relevant agencies to consider a possible ban of all imports into Russia of products containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by October 15.

The order is addressed to Rospotrebnadzor, the Agriculture Ministry, and the Trade and Economic Development Ministry. They have been ordered to “submit proposals on amendments to the Russian legislation aimed at tightening control over the turnover of products containing components obtained from GMOs together with the relevant federal executive bodies.”

The aforementioned agencies are also ordered to submit proposals “on the possibility of banning the import of such products into the Russian Federation.”

A list of the prime minister’s orders was drawn up to fulfill the presidential orders issued after the meeting on the socio-economic development of the Rostov region held on September 18. Medvedev’s orders have been posted on the government website, Interfax news agency reported last September 25.

Russia is currently taking a hard line on GMOs — in August the first independent project for identifying whether Russian farmers are growing illegal GM crops started in the Belgorod region.

NAGS (The National Association for Genetic Safety) conducted the first checks of agricultural crops for the presence of GMOs. No GMO plants were found in any Belgorod fields.

According to the current law, 19 GM lines are allowed in foodstuffs, but the cultivation of GMOs is not allowed.

After joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Russia is being pressured simplify the procedure for registration of genetically modified products, seed and feed, to stop their safety checks, and to stop controls over their distribution.

Nations Banning Monsanto’s Glyphosate Herbicide

Glyphosate is the world’s top selling herbicide, and Monsanto’s formulations Roundup is used with more than 80 percent of all genetically modified (GM) crops grown globally. But evidence of its extreme toxicity has been emerging within the past decade. Glyphosate was found to kill human placental cells at concentrations below that recommended for agricultural use and approved by our regulators, while Roundup was lethal at even lower concentrations.

The toxic effects of Roundup (R400) begin at 5 ppm, and the first endocrine disrupting action is already evident at 0.5 ppm, 800 times lower than the level of 400 ppm authorized by the US Environment Protection Agency in food or feed.

According to one analysis, GMO corn tested by Profit Pro contains a number of elements absent from traditional cord, including chlorides, formaldehyde and glyphosate. While those elements don’t appear naturally in corn, they were present in GMO samples to the tune of 60 ppm, 200pm and 13 ppm, respectively.

“Glyphosate is a strong organic phosphate chelator that immobilizes positively charged minerals such as manganese, cobalt, iron, zinc [and] copper,” Dr. Don Huber attested during a separate GMO study recently released, adding that those elements “are essential for normal physiological functions in soils, plants and animals.”

El Salvador has recently voted to ban glyphosate, the pesticide that most GM crops are designed to be grown with, along with 52 other chemicals.

Predictably, protests have been raised by the GM lobby group CropLife, which is scaremongering about losses of up to 60% in crop production if the chemicals are banned.

CropLife is funded by the big GM companies, including Monsanto.
http://www.powerbase.info/index.php/CropLife_International

The news of the historic El Salvadorean vote comes on the anniversary of the publication of the groundbreaking study led by Prof GE Seralini, which found that the glyphosate-based pesticide Roundup – and a GM maize engineered to tolerate it – caused severe organ damage and increased rates of tumours and premature death in rats. Roundup was found to be toxic at half the level permitted in EU drinking water.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637

Denmark has also imposed widespread bans on the spraying of glyphosate in response to research showing that the sprays have been contaminating the countrys groundwater.

The chemical has, against all expectations sieving down through the soil and polluting the ground water at a rate of five times more than the allowed level for drinking water, according to tests done by the Denmark and Greenland Geological Research Institution (DGGRI).

A decade ago, the Danish environment minister Hans Christian Schmidt announced unprecedented restrictions on glyphosate, the country’s and Europe’s most widely used herbicide.

Sources:
gmwatch.org
preventdisease.com
rt.com
organic.com.au

Natasha Longo has a master’s degree in nutrition and is a certified fitness and nutritional counselor. She has consulted on public health policy and procurement in Canada, Australia, Spain, Ireland, England and Germany.